The German Federal Intelligence Agency (BND) has formed a new unit to defend federal bodies and national industry from online espionage. But it finds it difficult to fill all 130 new positions.

BND chief Gerhard Schindler has briefed a small number of MPs
about the plan last week and has received an approval, reports the
magazine Der Spiegel.

The agency is particularly concerned with hacker attacks from
China and, to a lesser extent, from Russia, the report says.
Schindler estimates that German federal government agencies endure
three to five such attacks daily.

Germany’s top spy says foreign hackers are currently only after
information, but have the potential to damage industry,
infrastructure, communications and government processes. The new
counter-cyber espionage team is meant to mitigate that
vulnerability.

The BND is now frantically searching for software experts to man
the stations in the new unit. It hoped to attract people from the
hacker community and private computer security firms with high
wages, but it proved to be difficult. The agency is eyeing
Germany’s universities for suitable recruits now, the magazine
says.

Some defense contractors working in Germany had been reported to
withstand hacker attack last year, including the European aviation
company EADS and steel producer involved in production of armor
ThyssenKrupp.

Germany is mounting up cyber security amid growing tension over
the rising influence of hacker operations. The US and China have
recently been trading accusations of using hackers to attack each
other.

Meanwhile last week Interpol enrolled Russia’s leading
information security company Kaspersky Lab to help the organization
track down cyber criminals.

“Transnational crime cannot be fought in isolation, and
drawing on private sector expertise and support against cybercrime
is essential. Fighting cybercrime requires that law enforcement at
both the national and international levels works with the private
sector, particularly its forward-thinking technological leaders
such as Kaspersky Lab, in order to keep pace with today’s
cybercriminals,” Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble
told journalists.